Satyrs

Title: Satyrs
Repository: British Museum
Alternative: Psykter Vase E768
Creator: Douris
Photographer: Lowenstam, Steven
Creator Display: Douris (Greek vase painter and potter, active ca. 500-475 BCE)
Description: Pottery: red-figured psykter (wine-cooler). Revels of bearded satyrs. The central figure appears to be that of a bearded satyr, dressed as a herald, in chlamys (Thracian ?) with heavy horizontal patterns, petasos at back, and high endromides with flaps, turned over, of skin; he moves to left looking back, with caduceus inverted in his left hand, and holding up his right in surprise. The rest of the figures fall into four groups, proceeding to the right as follows: (i) Two bearded satyrs, advancing from each side towards one who has fallen backwards to right on fingers and toes, with a cantharos balanced on his phallos; the satyr on the right pours wine from an oinochoe into the cantharos, the other holds forward with both hands a second cantharos. (ii) Two bearded satyrs dancing on each side of a cantharos on the ground; the one on the left, resting on his left leg, has thrown his right foot back and upward, as if to kick his back with his heel; his body is en face, and this right foot is a bold attempt at foreshortening; with body and arms bent to right, his attitude seems to suggest plunging head first into the cantharos. The other, who is wreathed with ivy, balances himself, with arms extended behind him, on his left leg, and flourishes his right foot over the cantharos. (iii) A bearded satyr, with legs in air, supports himself on right hand and left forearm, and lowers his mouth into a kylix resting on the ground. The other (ithyphallic) strides towards him from right, holding a kylix by the foot in his left, and extending his right with a gesture of admiration. (iv) A bearded satyr has fallen backwards to left upon his hands, with his left leg bent under him (foot in foreshortening), and into his open mouth has wine poured from a wine-skin by a bearded satyr on left, and from an oinochoe by another. Above group (ii) is inscribed ΑΡΙΣΤΑΛΟPΑΣ KAΛΟΣ, 'Άρισταλόρας καλός. Below it, ΔΟΡΙΣ ΕΛΡΑΦΣΕΝ, Δόυρις ἔγραφσεν. All the satyrs, except the herald and the one last described, are bald on the crown; and all except the one wreathed have a fillet fastening the hair in a knot behind; in the case of the reclining figure in (iv) the hair is knotted, but the fillet is omitted. The tumbler in (iii) has the end of his beard recurved in a small tuft. The design forms a frieze around the shoulder and body of the vase. Purple fillets, wreath, wine, inscriptions, and cord of petasos. Brown inner markings and hair up centre of body; edge of hair in thinned black. Eye, with dotted pupil against inner angle, smaller than usual. Round the flat part of the shoulder, a band of tongue pattern; below the design, a band of alternate key and red cross square. At the junction of the base to the body, a band of alternate palmette and flower (silhouette) laid horizontally. --The British Museum Walters, H B; Forsdyke, E J; Smith, C H, Catalogue of Vases in the British Museum, I-IV, London, BMP, 1893; Walters, H B, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain 8, British Museum 6, London, BMP, 1931
View: Front
Coverage: Attica, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece (creation) Cerveteri, Lazio, Italy (discovery)
Temporal: ca. 500-470 BCE
Subject: Douris Including Symposium Pottery IV Black Figure, Red Figure
Style Period: Red-figure Attic (Mainland Greek pottery styles)
Work Type: psykters
Date: -0500/-0470
Identifier: Lowenstam_VRC_06026
Item Locator: Box 13, Section 22
Rights: In Copyright
Dc Rights Holder: University of Oregon, Department of Classics
Local Collection Name: Steven Lowenstam Collection
Type: Image
Format: image/tiff
Measurements: Height: 28.575 cm
Material: pottery | painted
Set: Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology
Primary Set: Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology
Institution: University of Oregon
Cultural Context: Attic (culture)
Id Current Repository: 1868,0606.7